$100 in 1931 is worth $951 in 1993,
because prices increased 850.7% over that period, an average of
3.70% a year.
$100 in 1931 has
the same buying power as
$951
in 1993
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
850.7%
Average inflation rate
3.70% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$951
Price difference ($100 base)
$851
CPI in 1931
15.2
CPI in 1993
144.5
Inflation in 1931
-8.98%
Inflation in 1993
2.99%
$100 in 1931 → 1993
$951
$100 in 1993 → 1931
$10.52
What happened to prices between 1931 and 1993
Between 1931 and 1993, the Consumer Price Index went from 15.2 to 144.5.
Cumulatively, prices increased 850.7%, which works out to an average of
3.70% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1931 bought what
$0.11 buys in 1993: the 1931 dollar
lost 89.5% of its purchasing power over
these 62 years.
Consumer prices fell 9.0% in 1931, a sharp acceleration from the 2.3% decline
in 1930, as falling wages, collapsing farm prices, and a fresh
wave of bank failures fed a downward spiral that the still-contracting
economy could not shake. More than 2,000 banks failed during the year, far
more than in 1930, as depositors who had watched earlier banks go under
pulled their cash out of ones they feared were next. The crisis went
international that September, when Britain suspended the gold standard amid
a run on sterling. The Federal Reserve’s response made the domestic downturn
worse before it made anything better: to defend the dollar’s own gold
backing, the Fed raised its discount rate sharply that October, in two steps
from 1.5% to 3.5%, tightening credit at the exact moment the economy needed
the opposite. Not every headline that year was grim. The Empire State
Building opened its doors on May 1, briefly the tallest building in the
world, though so much of Manhattan’s office space sat vacant amid the
Depression that tenants stayed scarce and New Yorkers took to calling it the
“Empty State Building.” Consumer prices had now fallen for two straight
years and stood 53.5% above their 1913 level, down from the
68.7% margin of just twelve months before. First-class postage remained at 2
cents.
Every 1931 amount converts to 1993 at the same ratio, 9.51: $1,000 becomes
$9,507, and $10,000 becomes $95,066.
Amount in 1931
Value in 1993
$1.00
$9.51
$5.00
$47.53
$10.00
$95.07
$20.00
$190
$50.00
$475
$100
$951
$500
$4,753
$1,000
$9,507
$5,000
$47,533
$10,000
$95,066
$100,000
$950,658
$1,000,000
$9,506,579
Inflation by spending category, 1931–1993
Between 1931 and 1993, food rose the most, up 992.2%, while apparel rose the least, up 507.7%, against 850.7% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1931
spending costs in 1993, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1931 →
All items (CPI-U)
3.70%
$951
Food
3.93%
$1,092
Apparel
2.95%
$608
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1931: core (all items less food & energy) (1957–), energy (1957–), housing (1967–), medical care (1935–), transportation (1935–), recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1931 to 1993
Prices climbed fastest in the 1970s, averaging 7.82% a year, and fell in the 1930s (0.9% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1931–1993 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1931, at end
1931–1940
-0.91%
-7.9%
$92.11
1940–1950
5.58%
72.1%
$159
1950–1960
2.08%
22.8%
$195
1960–1970
2.74%
31.1%
$255
1970–1980
7.82%
112.4%
$542
1980–1990
4.72%
58.6%
$860
1990–1993
3.40%
10.6%
$951
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1931
$100 from 1931 had already become $197 by
1961, on its way to $951 in 1993; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 14.4% in 1947, and prices fell 9.9% in 1932, the deepest deflation of the period.
Long periods are sampled every 5 years; the calculator above covers any pair of years.
The destination year: 1993
In 1993, prices rose 3.0% and $100 from 1931 had the buying
power of $951; the year's average CPI of 144.5 is the level
behind every 1993 figure on this page.
By 1993, the median household earned about $31,200, gas averaged $1.11 a gallon, and a new home
cost roughly $126,500. Inflation ran at 3.0% for the year, holding close to where it had settled
the year before as the recovery slowly gathered strength. Washington spent much of the year on
two pieces of unfinished business from the recession: a deficit-reduction package, the Omnibus
Budget Reconciliation Act, that raised the top income tax rate to 39.6% to start narrowing a
budget gap left over from the 1980s, and a trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
that President Clinton signed into law in December after a contentious fight in Congress. NAFTA
phased out most tariffs between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada and took effect the following
January. The year’s other defining event had nothing to do with the economy: in February, a bomb
exploded in the World Trade Center’s parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than a
thousand. By year’s end, the pieces of the decade’s later economic story, freer trade, a
shrinking deficit, and inflation holding near 3%, were already in place.
MLA: “Inflation from 1931 to 1993: $100 is worth $951 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1993/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1931 to 1993. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1931-to-1993/